Betty Glover Library Workout Tape, an excellent archival fun video showing us what libraries were like in 1987. COM CAT spin! Is that Devo I hear?
Category: librarians
you can be sexy *and* a librarian this halloween
Erica discovers that Target is selling a librarian halloween costume. Oh my.
Jeremy the Librarian Meets Mr. T
You should read Jeremy’s blog anyhow, but in case you missed this: he met Mr. T!
PSA: It’s Mover & Shaker Time Again
From my email to your eyes. Please nominate your favorite awesomest librarians.
The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. The sixth annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2007 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead. The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2006.
You can use the online form here [warning: print out a copy before you submit, in case your submission fails and everything you wrote vanishes]. Or, if you prefer, print out the PDF and return it to Ann Kim at LJ, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010, or fax to 646-746-6734.
update: not sure if your favorite librarian has been a Mover and Shaker before? Check out Marylaine’s handy (and alphebatized) list of past honorees. Thanks so much for putting this together Marylaine!
my VR experience, follow-up
Two things to post in the aftermath of my virtual reference experience with Boston Public Library. First, Luke the Librarian, who does a lot of VR himself has written a long thoughtful post on what people should know about virtual reference, and what VR practitioners can still learn. Second, I got this follow-up email from the Social Sciences librarian at BPL with some more information both about the resources that were suggested to me as well as some information about the author of a book that was recommended, I guess he’s going to be in the area soon. Very cool, don’t you think? Marta Pardee-King is a class act. Note at the end of the transcript, someone there reads my blog too.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this sort of ongoing patron-relationship model is one of the things that the flesh-and-blood librarian model has over the VR model. I had a fine interaction with the woman I worked with, but she’s paid to interact with me, and many other patrons, on a case by case basis ONLY. There is no possibility of having a longer-term patron/librarian relationship and every VR situation is a new case. The VR librarian never gets to know you, never learns your habits, doesn’t have an investment in your continued patronage and in fact wouldn’t have a way to continue a librarian relationship with you if they wanted to. This is a shame. Having an option for 24/7 readyref types of interactions is definitely a way of increasing the library’s presence. Making sure that answering reference questions doesn’t become simply a matter of expedience and profit-motive is equally important. Thanks again to BPL and the woman who tried to help me with my harder-than-I-thought-it-was question. I had not intended to turn this into an object lesson, I was just trying to help my friend impress his mother-in-law.